RE: A way forward

On Friday, July 24, 2009 4:55 PM Robert O'Callahan wrote:
> Are font vendors willing to license fonts for use in the 
> EOT-Lite format and with no requirement for same-origin restrictions?
> 
> If they are, I'm surprised.
> 
> If they're not, then EOT-Lite isn't very useful, since serving 
> non-free fonts to IE users (its great advantage) will require burdensome 
> and fragile Referer checking.

Since none of the proposed web font formats (EOT-Lite, .ZOT, .webfont) have
a root string/URL binding feature, I think this question then applies to any
of the currently proposed web font formats.

I can't speak for other font vendors, but only Ascender. 

We do not intend to require that the browser do a same-origin check,
although we think such a check has value. We are hoping that our customers
for EOT Lite fonts will reasonably restrict access to the font software from
web pages not originating from their web server.

This benefits customers who want to protect their bandwidth and possibly
their brand by limiting hotlinking or deeplinking to their site's resources.

It also benefits us as a font vendor in minimizing use of the font software
by unlicensed websites.

Again, the licensing issue is not specific to EOT-Lite. It impacts .ZOT and
.webfont or any other new web font format in the same way.


Bill Davis
Ascender

Received on Monday, 27 July 2009 17:01:47 UTC